


my soul to keep

by LoveIsNotAVictoryMarch



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU Castiel - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Coda, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, POV Alternating, Parallel Universes, Post-Episode: s12e23 All Along the Watchtower, Post-Season/Series 12, Season/Series 12, from s13, yeah i got back to this out of spite
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-13
Packaged: 2018-11-04 10:12:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10988811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoveIsNotAVictoryMarch/pseuds/LoveIsNotAVictoryMarch
Summary: While Dean mourns his best friend and everything they never had, an angel in another dimension agrees to an uneasy truce with a band of human fighters to combat Lucifer.Their paths cross, and Dean finds that there's hope even in the darkest of hours.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As always, I've got an outline and a rough plan, but it's a WIP... I'd love to hear y'alls thoughts on this!
> 
> I'll update once a week if life allows it and plan for around 20 to 25k. 
> 
> All my thanks to [Marie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mariesondetre/pseuds/mariesondetre) for the beta!!!
> 
> Please tell me if I forgot to tag something. I'll add warnings in the summaries as I go.

 

 

Castiel awakes with the first wave of pale grey light reaching into the mouth of the cave. The air is humid and stinks of phosphor and sulfur, and the acrid smell of recent death. The bodies of three rage demons still lie a few feet from the entrance. After fighting them off he and his crew had been too tired to burn the mauled corpses. 

He sits up, lets the raddled blanket fall from his shoulders, and stretches. There’s a hole in his right wing where the sword of a demon punctured it and he has a few nasty gashes on his left forearm that burn with every motion. A dull ache sits behind his sternum. Must have been one of the blows he traded with the leader of the attackers. 

The gashes will heal on their own in a few hours if he gives his vessel some rest. The wing will take longer but he will still be able to fly so he’ll just have to live with the pain. He can do that. 

Castiel stands and walks over to the entrance, stepping over the sleeping forms of his lieutenants, Naomi and Raphael, to meet with Anna, his second in command who is currently guarding their base. 

Anna looks up from a spear she took from one of the now dead demons and stops sharpening it with her knife. “Commander,” she acknowledges and lets her gaze drop again before it snaps back up. Her brows knit together while she focuses on his chest. Castiel looks down too, certain to see another wound, but he only finds scarred skin, the two black leather straps that cross over his chest and around his wings on his back. The holster keeps his various blades and guns in place as it did for the last years. No fresh bruises or bullet holes. 

“What?”, he barks when Anna doesn’t stop staring. The ache is back and he’s getting irritated by the uncomfortable pressure behind his ribs. 

Anna’s eyes meet his for a brief second. Her position forbids looking her superior in the eye, and normally Castiel would remind her of that, but he lets it slip. 

She swallows and turns to look over the plane stretching on the other side of the entrance. “I thought I saw… it doesn’t matter. The night has been quiet. The human camp was busy for a while. A few new arrivals, but no serious numbers.”

Castiel growls a hasty command to stay alert in her direction and steps out to have a look for himself. Sick grey skies are hanging low over the dead landscape. Methanol fires mark the spots where rotten plants and animals and bodies were remade into gas. The world is black and grey and pale red. 

In a sudden flash another vision of this place flickers over the scene: a lake, surrounded by tall green trees whispering in the breeze. He can make out a small white house on the other side, a road, a rocky beach before the image ripples and disappears. What’s left is the hollow where the lake used to be, and a few dead stumps are all that’s left of the forest. 

A sudden need to cross the valley and search for the little white house buzzes under Castiel’s skin. He tries to squash it. Maybe his wounds are more severe than he thought. Some angels weaken after a few years on earth, they get susceptible to human diseases, infection, fever. That could be an explanation for his symptoms. He’s been stationed here for ten years now and hasn’t been back in heaven for three of them. He should inform Anna as a precaution. Instead he tells her he will patrol the area, checks his blades and jumps down from the plateau. His wounds make a graceful flight impossible, but he lands on his feet with two powerful beats of his wings. 

He sets out north and will give the place where he saw the house a wide berth. 

 

###

 

The trap snaps shut between two charred tree stumps. Castiel realizes his mistake the second he hears the soft  _ click _ . A net emerges from the sand and yanks his feet from under him, and when he blinks again, he’s hanging upside down between the dead trees. He jerks around to free his hands and go for his blades, but before he reaches them, a figure clad in rags appears in his line of vision, automatic gun pressed to a burly shoulder. 

Castiel knows the humans have mold bullets from the silver of stolen angel blades. He stills. This is not the moment to fight, even if every single one of his cells begs him to defend himself. The figure nods and a few more humans emerge. One cuts the rope that keeps the net up and Castiel falls to the ground, landing on his wounded wing. When he can’t suppress a short shout of pain, one of the men laughs and tells him that it will be his pleasure to make him scream some more. Castiel says nothing. 

They bind him with handcuffs full of sigils that burn his skin and put pressure on the gash on his arm. He’s bleeding again. The leader of the group rips the cloth from his face and tells him calmly that they will take him to their camp. The pulse in Castiel’s chest flares at that and he  _ knows  _ the name of the man a second before the leader tells him: Bobby Singer. Castiel shakes his head and tries to clear his thoughts. A tug on his cuffs sends sparks of pain through his whole body. Then they start walking. 

 

###

 

The human camp is an old military compound five miles west from the cave Castiel and his soldiers chose as a base a few weeks ago. Their mission was to gather information on a larger group of demons under the command of Lilith, and they found out about this place the day after they arrived. Contrary to the human legends and myths, angels didn’t come to earth to slaughter their kids. When attacked, Castiel has no qualms to kill a human, but his mission lies elsewhere. He does not condone unnecessary violence.

Castiel and his captors are greeted with mostly dull faces of people going about their daily chores – pumping water up from the ancient well, tending to the plants in an old warehouse, repairing gear – and a few sneers and prompts to just  _ kill the fucking winged rat and be done with it _ . They won’t, though, Castiel knows. They can tell his rank from his black wings and the tattoos on his shoulders. They will try to torture valuable intel out of him. And  _ then _ they will kill him. 

A hard push between his wings almost brings him to his knees. He regains his balance and ignores the nasty chuckles behind him. “Stop staring and move,” the man grunts and Castiel keeps walking, deeper into the camp, to a massive building with broken windows and steel doors that hang from rusty hinges. He’s pushed again to go inside and this time he turns to bare his teeth and hiss at the human. The man, he seems to be quite young, takes a step back, then catches himself and chuckles. 

“Easy there. No need to get all worked up. Yet.” 

There’s no sudden recognition this time, no name floating up from somewhere in his mind. Castiel turns and steps into the half-light. He might as well try to find out more about their strategies before he breaks himself free. He’ll make sure that one of the humans will not survive his escape. 

 

###

 

_ The green-eyed man is sitting on the other side of the table and picking the label from a bottle filled with a honey colored liquid. His hands are full of scars and Castiel is sure he knows how to use them to kill. He’s an enemy, a human, a hunter. But when Castiel looks down at his own hands, he finds them curled around a bottle, too, instead of the handle of an angel blade.  _

_ Even in the soft light, the room is full of colors. Warm browns in the table and the chairs, yellow spilling from the lamps, the green of the man’s eyes. It’s disconcerting.  _

_ The man talks. His voice is low and deep, and Castiel can hear a tone in it that he hasn’t heard in a long time. It sounds like familiarity and trust and friendship _ . 

 

###

 

“Hey!”

A rough hand on his shoulder jostles him awake. Castiel finds himself eye to eye with his hateful guard. 

“Morning, sunshine”, the man chirps with false amicability. “Let’s get this party started.”

 

 

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long! Warning for violence, but nothing overly graphic. Let me know if more warning/tags are needed, please, and tell me what you think?

 

 

Pain is one of the many things he had to relearn after he got his permanent vessel. In his true form, he can feel pain, yes, but it’s direct – cause and effect. Someone cuts you, you hurt, you bleed, you heal, the hurting stops. A blow with a specific force hitting a specific point on your body leads to a specific amount of pain. 

When he found the dying body of James Novak, he had just gotten his order to fight on earth. As a Seraph of the Seventh Choir, he had overlooked the proceedings from heaven and pushed his soldiers here and there like chess pieces on a board. After 67 of them had fallen in the siege of hell, his punishment had been immediate: a lower rank and fighting in the field. 

Now pain is relative, conditional, vague. After hours of being beaten and punched and cut open, he can’t differentiate between the sources anymore. His legs are numb. His back feels ripped open. His left arm is broken and lies at an awkward angle because of the cuffs. Some kicks he feels, others only juggle his body but don’t translate to his nervous system. 

He always marveled at the feeling of detachment when a vessel gets close to dying. It’s as if human bodies have a natural limit for pain and shut off when it’s reached. Through the fog of exhaustion he tries to concentrate on the never-ending monologue his keeper is spitting out, in case he’ll slip and tell him something useful. They’ve been at this for hours, since the man has woken Castiel and brought him from his cell to this larger storage room. The man keeps ranting. So far it’s mostly hate-filled insults, the ramblings of a delirious believer. 

“… should kill all of you on sight, fucking monsters. Angels, hah! Some nice propaganda. You’re nothing better than those demons, worse if you ask me. Arrogant bastards. You never did anything for us…” he drones on and punctuates every curse with well-placed kicks to Castiel’s stomach and his head. He closes his right eye. The left has been swollen shut for a while now. 

The man isn’t even trying to get Castiel to talk anymore, just uses him as an outlet for his rage. Castiel has no idea what angels did to him to warrant this kind of hate, but knowing his brethren, he is quite sure there’s some truth in the vicious allegations thrown at him. He’s heard and seen the impact this war had on each side – no one could claim innocence anymore in the face of the various atrocities committed in the name of a higher goal. 

He tries to retreat in his own mind, chases the fleeting memory of the dream he had last night. He had felt an unusual bond with the green-eyed man and now he wonders how his mind had conjured that image. He had never met anyone looking like him, he’s sure he would remember, and he knows he’s never felt close to a human being before. 

His heart beats steadily in his chest, pumping his blood slowly through his vessel’s veins, to the places where the life is dripping out of it. He could leave this body, he muses, leave earth behind and go back to heaven. He would have to admit that he failed, but maybe that would be a small price if he would never see this bleached, dead world again. 

A foot meets his kidney, again, and he can feel something rip deep inside his intestines. The pain is constant, with sudden spikes that send fire along his nerves and make his limbs twitch in agony. He hopes it will be over soon, that he will either lose consciousness or the man will get tired. 

The door creaks to his right and it sounds off. His right ear isn’t working. A gasp follows the first noise. 

“Cole, what the fuck?” It’s a man, too, and Castiel turns his head to look at him. His dark blonde hair is long in the back and falls in short strands over his forehead. He gapes at Castiel’s beaten body, takes in the blood on the floor and finally focuses on “Cole” again. 

“What does it look like? I’m working this asshole over so he spills some intel on his pals.” Cole makes it sound like it’s the most logical thing in the world. 

“Bobby said to talk to him, not break his every bone and kill him!” The newcomer’s voice gets higher with his anger, and Castiel almost believes that he is genuinely shocked to see the work of his fellow fighter. The man sighs and drags his dirty hands over his even dirtier face. Water is a luxury that’s not wasted on personal hygiene. “Go. I’ll take over from here.” 

Cole starts to argue, but a cold look from lanky long-haired man stops him. “Okay,” he grumbles and leaves without looking back. 

Castiel take a deep breath. He hopes they’ll give him a few hours so he can heal his most severe wounds. A hand on his shoulder startles him. The eyes meeting his are kind and sad. “I’m sorry, man. I’m sure you won’t believe me, but we don’t usually treat our prisoners like that. Can you stand?”

Castiel nods, although he’s far from positive that his broken leg will hold his weight. The man grips his arm and helps him stand. Castiel’s wings drag over the dusty floor, limp and useless. They walk slowly out of the room, back to Castiel’s cell. His captor is chatting the whole way, promising to get him bandages for the wounds and disinfectant, assures him he will tell their leader about what happened. Castiel only listens with half his mind. He has to concentrate on walking and not falling over as sharp pain shoots through his leg with every step. 

The wounds make him weak, they make him feel human, and some part of him recounts that feeling, as if he experienced this before – the hopelessness and the way the pain heightens every emotion as his grace is fighting to keep his vessel alive. This shouldn’t feel familiar, though, because he’s never been in this position. He shakes his head to clear it. The strange sense of déjà-vu struggles with his rational knowledge and it makes him dizzy. 

They reach the cell. Castiel stumbles inside and falls onto the small cot. He groans when the movement jostles his leg and his wings. 

“I’ll be right back. The name’s Ash by the way. You can ask a guard to send for me if you need anything.” He hovers in the door frame as if he waits for an answer. Is Castiel supposed to supply his name too? Does the man, Ash, wait for him to say thank you? He opens his one still working eye and stares in Ash’s direction. 

“Alright,” Ash says, “whatever. I’ll see you soon.”

Castiel closes his eye and lets beautiful darkness envelope him, drag him under, and he doesn’t hear the door fall shut before he’s losing consciousness. His last thought is that he hopes to see the man with the green eyes again. 

He doesn’t. 

Instead he hears the man’s voice, rough and strained, full of sadness and desperation, asking an absent God for one more chance, one last divine interference. He’s begging, he’s threatening, he’s bargaining, but from what Castiel can gather, he doesn’t get an answer. Castiel waits with him - silent now - for a sign, and his whole being hopes that the man will be heard, even if he does not know what he prays for. Some part knows that the outcome is important for him too, and that same part can feel the man’s pain as if it were his own. 

Castiel wakes up with a sob still stuck in his lungs. He wants to reach out and soothe the pain he heard in that voice, even more than healing his own wounds. Something feels broken inside him, something that goes deeper than his bones and even his grace. 

Castiel thinks he might be losing his mind. 

 


	3. Chapter 3

 

His wounds heal slowly. 

The cell and the whole complex are heavily warded, as are the cuffs that bind his wrists. The sigils put a constant pressure on his grace, and weaken him with every day of exposure. He sleeps a lot. Before he had been captured, he gave himself around three hours a night – a concession to the human vessel and spending so much time fighting – now he sleeps for eight, ten hours and doesn’t feel rested in the least. 

The dreams keep coming, and they are disorienting and draining. In some of them he is dropped into scenes that feel way too real to be dreams, more like memories. In some of them he fights alongside the green-eyed man and another, taller one. In others he is alone, in a car or in strangely decorated rooms that stink of sweat and loneliness. 

And one night he’s back at the dimly lit library, he sits at the same table, opposite the human, and they talk about a hunt they did together. It’s not the realism of it that’s unsettling, or the idea he would be fighting side by side with a human, but the fact that this room feels like home, more so than heaven ever did. 

He wakes up with tears streaming down his face and he wipes at them angrily until the skin of his cheeks feels raw. 

Awake, the dreams don’t vanish like cloudy visions, but expand, and his mind supplies details he hadn’t seen before. His head hurts with it, as if there isn’t enough room for himself and the new/old memories, and he lays down again to sleep. Even though he never met him, he misses the green-eyed man fiercely. 

_ Dean _ . 

The name floats up from somewhere deep inside him, and Castiel whispers it tentatively, afraid someone will hear and take it away from him. 

 

###

 

Cole doesn’t come back. Instead Ash appears once or twice a day to bring him food. Castiel doesn’t touch it for almost a week. His stomach grumbles for the first time after the sixth day. On day eight, he gives in. 

The food feels odd in his mouth and he chews carefully. It tastes like mud. But he gets some of his strength back from it, so he eats. 

Ten days after his capture, Ash is back and opens his cell. “Bobby is back. He wants to talk to you.” 

Castiel shuffles to his feet, disgusted by the little pitiful sounds he makes when he puts weight on his leg. The bones have started to knit themselves together, but he’s still sore. His wings are healing too, but he’s sure something isn’t set right because he can’t control the left one. He will have to break the hollow bones again before he will be able to fly. 

He drags his wings behind him and tries to ignore the stab to his pride. He must look like a broken doll, a warrior not worth the name. His brethren would likely leave him behind if they found him like this. He’d be a liability. Shame rises up to his throat and he straightens his spine and tries to lift his wings a little bit higher. He has not yet given up. 

Bobby Singer is waiting behind a desk in the same wide room Castiel saw him last. The tables around him are full of books and weapons. Five men stand on the far side near the broken windows, deep in conversation. They all wear sturdy boots and solid army clothes in grey and beige and green, patched up and full of dust and specks of what Castiel guesses is old blood. Their faces are hard. Cold, calculating eyes land on him when he enters with Ash. 

Singer clears his throat with a cough. “I heard what Cole did. Can’t say I blame him, but he acted against my orders. How are your wounds?”

His words are rough and Castiel doesn’t find an ounce of empathy in his eyes, but Singer seems genuinely interested, so Castiel forces himself to say, “Better.”

Singer huffs. He stabs his finger down onto some paper. Castiel can see from his vantage point that it’s a map. “Me and a few of my men were after that bitch Lilith and her horde. Chased them to the mountains before we lost their trail.”

Castiel inclines his head to show that he his listening. He had been chasing Lilith too and has to admit that the fact these humans are still alive spoke highly of their prowess in the field. 

“Before we went out, we found a… let’s say we found a source. I don’t know yet how reliable. Word is that we might have an even bigger problem at our hands. I tried to get to Lilith to learn more about it, but since she slipped through my fingers, I’ll have to ask you.” The old man narrows his eyes and his bushy eyebrows drop low while he scratches his beard. 

Castiel doesn’t know much about human body language but he is pretty sure Singer debates if and how far he can trust his captive. To Castiel’s surprise, the decision seems to be made in his favor. Which is odd. Singer has no reason to trust him with even the barest information. As a fact, Castiel’s surprised they let him live that long. 

“What do you know about Lucifer?” Singer watches him closely as Castiel weighs his answer. 

The war had started when the gates of hell were opened and the angels came down from heaven to fight on earth. Both sides split up in factions – because on both sides they lacked a competent leader. Hell would have united under Lucifer, but he was still locked in a cage that no one could open. The demons had tried anything to free him, but until now, they hadn’t been successful. 

Castiel tells the humans what he knows: “He was an archangel and he fell. He’s locked up in hell, in a cage that can’t be opened.”

Singer’s eyes turn to slits. He doesn’t answer. 

The door opens and the men fall quiet. Singer’s face contorts into a resigned frown. Castiel turns to find a blonde woman standing in the doorway. The silence stretches on. Her eyes are huge and she takes a shocked breath. Recognition flows over her features, and is followed by pure joy.

“Castiel!” She closes the distance between them and cradles his face in her hands before the men can react. Shouts fill the air, and Singer’s hand lands on his desk with a deep  _ thump _ . “Shut up!” he barks. Then, softer, “Mary.”

Her gaze wanders over Castiel’s face and to his shoulders where the tops of his folded wings can be seen. She lets her hands fall down and takes a step back. 

“It’s not him,” Singer murmurs, and he gets up to stand behind Mary to put his hand on her shoulder in a soothing gesture. 

“I thought…”, she starts. “For a moment I thought…”

“I know. But he’s not the person you know and we can't be sure if we can trust him.” He leads her to a table on the far wall and beckons her to sit down on one of the chairs. 

Castiel feels like falling, like he has lost all sense of direction. He knows that woman, and he doesn’t know her. He wanted to turn his face into her touch and shove her away. He wants to never see these people again. He wants to ask them what’s wrong with him, how they know them, who they mistook him for. Where do all these  _ emotions _ come from? His stomach heaves as the anxiety builds inside him and he regrets having eaten their food. Did they maybe poison him? Is this a spell? 

The room goes black and Castiel falls to his knees, hard, his bound wrists no use to catch his weight. Pain shoots up from his kneecaps all through his thighs. He lists to the side and slides to the floor, bangs his head on the concrete, and he’s almost thankful for the blow that drowns him into blissful unconsciousness while the room around him explodes in a cacophony of voices. 

He never told them his name.

 


	4. Chapter 4

 

 

The vast plain stretches towards a horizon that’s nothing more than a thin line between one shade of yellow grey and another. 

They’ve left the camp the day before. Castiel had been carried back to his cell where he came to a few hours later. Ash had told him they would set out again to find Lilith, but that hadn’t been the whole truth. Since the humans had asked him about Lucifer, Castiel had a bad feeling. 

And he has questions, so many questions. But telling his captors about the visions and the dreams is a risk he can’t take. Even if they find some kind of common ground and work together against the same enemy, he can’t trust those people. He wouldn’t trust his own unit with it. 

The strategic thing to do is to play along and find out where the sudden interest in the first fallen angel stems from. That other part of him, the one he slowly learns to accept even if he doesn’t understand it, tells him to help Singer and his crew. For once, both voices in his head point in the same direction, so he decides to follow. 

The sand bites into his skin and grinds in his wounds, it gathers under his leather and under the cuffs. Castiel tucks his head down low to keep it out of his eyes. If he could, he would fly. His wings are still useless though, and the sigils stop him from using much of his grace. 

Most of the men seem to accept his presence and while they keep their eyes on him, he’s left alone. Castiel uses the time to order his thoughts and sift through his newest “memories”. It’s still just details, puzzles pieces that don’t form a larger pattern. 

The blonde woman was Mary Winchester, the mother of Dean and Sam Winchester. He repeats their names in his head, waits for the swell of emotion and the images that follow. He has never met them, and yet, he knows them, knows them better than most of the angels he calls his brothers and sisters. 

If he closes his eyes, he can hear Dean’s voice, gruff or teasing or tired. Castiel can conjure his smell – leather and motor oil and citrus and human – and thinking of it brings back that tightness in his chest. He has never heard of anything that could explain these symptoms. 

If his vessel was still alive, Castiel could access his memories, but since James Novak was gone, he couldn’t be the source. Some angels started to show signs of human weaknesses the longer they stayed on earth: their grace faded, they slept and ate and developed other human desires. Were those images in his mind another sign of his weak grace? Did all humans have hallucinations like this? He would know about that, surely? He doesn’t dare ask Ash about it, but he’s tempted. 

 

###

 

When the sun begins to set, Singer falls in step beside him. They don’t say anything for about a mile before Singer speaks up. 

“Word is, Lucifer came through a crack into another dimension. Their Lucifer. Ours is still locked up I hope.”

Castiel turns to get a good look at the leader of this rag-tag army. He seems like a level-headed, well-read man, so Castiel resists the urge to call him mad. His mind is working furiously. He’s heard of other dimensions even if he’s never been to one before. 

Singer carries on as if Castiel had answered. “There’s a rift that opened with the birth of a Nephilim.” He points at one of the mountains in the distance. Castiel looks over and concentrates on the area.  He tries reaching out with his grace, but he can’t sense anything. He’ll have to take Singer’s word for it. 

“I’ve seen it. I’ve seen people come through it. Mary came from the other side.”

Castiel has a thousand questions, but he asks only one. “Why do you tell me all this?”

Singer grunts. “In that other dimension, angels and humans work together from what I hear. I met… one of them. Not gonna lie – we could really use your knowledge and your power in this fight.”

Castiel is aware of the second of hesitation. And he thinks he knows which angel Singer met. It had to be another version of himself. Why else did Mary react the way she did when she first saw him? How did she know his name? But if that was the case, why didn’t that other Castiel come over to help in the pursuit of Lucifer?

Singer waits for an answer. “I’ll think about it,” Castiel says. 

Singer claps him on the shoulder. “You do that.” And with that, Castiel is alone with his tumultuous thoughts again. 

 

###

 

The next morning, the group of men that scouted area comes back whooping with victory. They half-carry a female demon with black hair and round features that waver over her real face. Cuts and bruises cover every part of her visible skin. Despite himself, Castiel feels for her. He spots Cole between the men. He wouldn’t wish his worst enemy to be helpless in that man’s hands. 

When the group passes Castiel, the demon straightens and looks right at him, then struggles to stop and stare. “And what are you?” she drawls through a busted lip. 

“Never seen an angel?” One of the men laughs. 

She ignores him, eyes locked on his chest, and he sees curiosity and something like jealousy in them. “Where did you get that?” 

He looks down to where she’s focusing and sees nothing. “I don’t… what do you see?”

She lifts her head and quirks a brow. The motion feels familiar. “Oh, honey, you don’t know? You’re glowing. I’d advice to get that fixed as soon as possible, it’s only gonna hurt if you keep it.” 

The men push her forward and leave Castiel behind, stunned. 

_ What did she see? _

Castiel looks around at the men surrounding him and tries to see them like a demon would. There are about twenty men and women with them. Some are so bundled up in fabric to keep out the sand that he can’t tell their gender. Different ages. Different skin tones. He’s indifferent to all of that though he learned those details were important for the humans and therefore important when dealing with them. 

He only cares for what’s behind the skin and the bones. He perceives only shadows of their souls in his current state, but it’s enough to confirm what he sees with his vessel’s eyes. Some souls are grey with sadness and fatigue, some of them red with rage and hate. And some, like Ash’s or Singer’s, shine a warm yellow with purpose, loyalty, friendship. 

They  _ glow _ . What –

Ash appears next to him. “Don’t listen to that one. Those demons mess with your head just for the fun of it. There’s nothing wrong with you, you’re just a bit frayed around the edges.” He smiles and lifts his hand to cover his eyes and scan the horizon. “The demon spoke of whispers that the Lucifer from the other side is assembling an army.”

“An army against whom?” Castiel follows Ash’s gaze but sees only desert. 

Ash chuckles. “Hell if I know. But I guess whatever we stumble into, at least we’ve got an angel with us.” He bumps Castiel’s shoulder amicably. 

Castiel stumbles a little, caught off guard, and Ash looks down at his cuffed hands. “I’ll talk to Bobby tomorrow about the shackles.” 

“Thank you.” 

When Ash leaves him, Castiel has the distinct feeling he learned something even more important than the fact that Lucifer was free. He shuffles on, bone tired all of a sudden, heading into a war alone and weak and obviously going crazy. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys for your comments and for subscribing. That really means a lot!
> 
> The next chapter won't take as long, I promise. Just like Cas, I miss Dean, so we'll find out what he's up to next week. Prepare for some angst.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for angst. If you wanna skip this chapter, there's a summary in the end notes.

 

Dean stays next to Cas‘ body for hours. His mind stumbles around the truth, reaching around blindly, disoriented. Between hasty desperate prayers there’s long stretches of black nothing. 

The cold seeps into him, from the ground into his legs and from Cas’ skin into his hands. 

Sam’s voice drifts over now and then. He comes out to tell him he found Jack. Then he’s there again to tell Dean he called Jody. Dean blinks and swallows. He doesn’t answer. 

The night wears on. And then the lake’s ablaze in orange and pink. Another day starts. 

The first one without Cas. 

 

###

 

Jody sits down beside him and touches his hand before she tries to loosen his fingers where he grips Cas’ trench coat. 

She takes Dean’s hand and straightens it to bring the blood flow back. She rubs circles into his palms and life comes back with pins and needles. He opens his mouth to tell her to stop but it’s too dry and he can’t make his vocal cords work. 

“It’s okay, honey,” she says. “I’ll stay here. Take your time.” 

She leans her head on his shoulder and waits with him. 

 

###

 

Dean must have fallen asleep. He awakes on the ground, a blanket over him, pillow stuffed under his head, and blinks against the clear blue sky. 

He doesn’t have to turn to know he’s lying next to the none-presence of Cas’ remains. 

Dean clears his throat. “I have to bury him.” 

He’s not sure if anybody’s around to hear him and he says it more to himself anyway. But Sam’s voice is there, steady as a rock. 

“I’ll help you.”

 

###

 

They dig the grave a good distance away from the lake, on a clearing behind the house. Little blue flowers dot the meadow, and Dean doesn’t know their name but he’s sure Cas would have liked them. 

He’s drenched in sweat by the time they’ve dug deep enough, despite the chill air. Dean puffs white clouds that dissolve before his eyes. When his breathing slows down, he steels himself. 

Sam stands back as Dean walks over to the lake and lifts Cas’ body. It’s heavy and unyielding, and Dean has to stop for a second to adjust the weight. 

He doesn’t look down all the way, concentrates on the path instead, and then he sinks to his knees next to the grave, mind racing. How is he supposed to let go?

Cas will tumble down into the earth and he will be gone. 

It’s not right. 

It’s not fair. 

Sam’s hand lands on his shoulder and at first Dean thinks he’s shaking him, but it’s his own body that trembles and jerks with sobs and panicked, heaving breaths. It’s ridiculous really. As if he’s new to losing loved ones. His nose is running, and his eyes burn from the many times he wiped the tears away. He’s a mess. He shakes his head and chuckles without humor. 

“Let me,” Sam says, and he takes what’s left of Cas and lays it gently into the ground. Cas, the otherworldly being, the cosmic wavelength, is nothing more than meat now. 

And it’s on Dean. It’s all on Dean. 

Jody helps to fill the grave while Dean sits there and watches the lifeless features vanish. 

 

###

 

It takes him two days before he can eat. For two days he only drinks and sleeps and cries. For three days after that, he sits quietly and drinks and sleeps. 

Jody and Sam take turns in sitting with him and looking after Jack. From what Dean hears, the nephilim is fully grown by now and has to learn about his heritage and the world and his powers. Like Kelly said, he’s not evil. But he doesn’t know what it means to be good either. Dean thinks Jack won’t find a better teacher for learning about that than his brother. 

He drifts to the surface of the real world in slow and lazy circles like a leaf in the autumn breeze. Numbness gives way to crystalline realization and leads back to that cold hollow place in his chest. 

Grief has always been like that for him. Yeah, there were times when all he felt was anger, and he experiences brief episodes of that now too, but mostly it’s resignation that once again he’s been left alone. 

Once again, Cas left. 

 

###

 

“Has Mary come back?” Dean asks on the sixth evening. 

“No,” Sam says, and if he’s surprised that Dean talks again he doesn’t show it. His voice is gentle. “The rift’s still there. I’m guessing she is over there with Bobby and looks for signs of Lucifer.”

“I should go too.” Dean fishes for the glass next to him and swallows the last of his whisky. 

Sam stays quiet. Yeah, Dean knows he’s in no shape to fight, but he’s gotta do  _ something _ . And having his mom in that other dimension, alone, does not sit well with him. 

And here he’s getting antsy. The clearing with the little blue colors is too close. The dark cloud in the back of his mind looms and threatens. While he  _ knows  _ Cas died, he’s not ready to face the truth that Cas is  _ gone _ . He’d rather hunt the devil than to work through that. 

Maybe Sam sees it. 

“Maybe you should go,” he mumbles, face all scrunched up in worry and sorrow.  _ He lost him too _ , Dean thinks, and his heart clenches. 

Dean stumbles to his feet. “I’ll catch a few hours of sleep. I’ll go in the morning.”

 

###

 

The weird arena where they landed the last time is still there and looks exactly the same. He can tell the spot where Cas confronted Lucifer. 

_ Stupid son of a bitch _ . 

Dean lets the duffel with a set of spare clothes, lots of weapons and his father diary fall to the ground next to him. He had to drive back to the bunker to get some of the stuff which had delayed his plan to get here profoundly.  

Dean takes a look around. Bleak yellow light lays over the scenery like an ugly filter. Dean coughs. The air is full of dust and fine sand. No wonder the inhabitant cover their faces. Speaking of. 

A small huddled figure struggles to stand on the other side of the field, between the massive stone pillars. Dean sees a gun emerge from the layers obscuring the whole person. He drops his duffel and grabs his own gun. 

“Who are you?”, the other one asks. 

Dean has heard the voice before. “Garth?”

The face is unveiled and a thin face appears. “How do you know my name?”

Dean feels a small smile on his lips that falls away immediately. “I… I know you on the other side.” He points behind him.

Garth’s eyes flicker over to the rift and then back to Dean. “I’ve been told to wait here in case one of the Winchesters comes through or the angel’s back.”

Dean flinches. 

“The angel won’t be coming back,” he says and tries to keep his voice steady. Then he tugs his gun back in his belt and offers his hand. “I’m Dean.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter summary: Dean grieves Cas' death and decides to follow Mary to the other side of the rift while Sam and Jody stay with Jack.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back and determined to finish this before the season starts. Tell me what you think?
> 
> Unbetad, so sorry for the mistakes.

 

 

Dean follows Garth through the grey world. Where he came from the weather would count as a sandstorm and Dean coughs and works hard to keep the fine kernels out his eyes. Garth doesn’t seem to mind. He trudges on and Dean is glad he leads the way. Dean would be lost in seconds without him.

They reach the compound after about two hours. Low, practical buildings huddle around each other in a way that makes Dean sure most of the structure lays underground. Under the sickly grey sky and surrounded by lifeless desert, the vista could be taken out of a dystopian movie. Dean already misses the colors of his own world.

Garth beckons him to a slightly bigger building with cracks concrete and busted windows. “Come in,” he says, and enters through the metal door.

Inside, Dean blinks the dust out of his eyes. He hears his mother before he sees her.

“Dean!” She hugs him tightly and Dean stops wiping his face to hug her back. He gives himself a moment to just sink into her embrace, but when the emotions well up, he takes a step back and clears his throat. He has to remember they haven’t got time for this.

Mary touches his cheek and smiles a little. “What are you doing here?”

“I…” his voice cracks, and he starts again. He’s just not ready to say it yet. “I wanted to bring you back safely.”

“Honey, I’m fine.” Mary turns to a guy he doesn’t recognize. “Could you bring us some water?” She goes over to the big table in the middle of the room, covered with maps and notes. Dean sees Mary’s handwriting on some of the papers.

“I would have come back tomorrow. I just wanted to share some of my knowledge with Bobby and the others to help them fight. Lucifer is still on the loose.”

Dean tries to focus on the problem at hand and swallows the searing rage that twists like a snake in his gut when he hears the name. It works. Cold determination takes its place. He will find Lucifer and kill him. His hands twitch with the need to close them around that bastard’s neck, and he clenches them, tight enough for his nails to leave marks in his palms.

Mary doesn’t notice his stiff posture. Or maybe she chooses to ignore it.

“But there’s not much else I could do. Bobby led a few of his fighters to search for Lucifer, but I stayed back because I wanted to come back to you first.” She underlines something on a sheet in front of her, distracted, before her head snaps up and her eyes twinkle with excitement. “Oh, I totally forgot. I met their Castiel! He’s an angel warrior, you wouldn’t recognize him.”

Dean’s knees go weak and a buzzing starts in his head. He can’t hear Mary’s voice over the sound. He can’t breathe. In a desperate attempt to get himself under control, he turns and stumbles into Garth.

“You okay man?” Garth holds him up with a hand on his shoulder, concern written all over his face. “You’re not gonna puke, right? Bathroom’s just down the hall.” He points, and Dean follows the directions.

When the door falls shut behind him, he leans back and slides to the floor. Dumb and pathetic, is what this is. He knocks his head down on his knees, and wipes his eyes angrily, grinding the sand even deeper under his lids.

Deep, trembling breaths.

Counting to ten.

 _Suck it up_.

His throat is still much too tight. So he counts to ten again, and waits until the coldness of the floor creeps into his bones and the tears rinse the sand from his eyes.

He stands and washes his face with yellow water from the rusty faucet. The porcelain is stained and full of cracks that filled with grime over the years. Dean follows the rivulets bending this way and that on their way down the drain, and he feels dazed and hollow.

A knock on the door echoes through the small room.

“Dean? Everything all right?” Mary sounds worried. Some young and small and needy part of him wants to open the door and tell her everything, curl into the embrace of her arms and cry on her shoulder. He’s dead, he’d say, I lost him. And she would know, or maybe she already suspected all that those words would mean. And she would run, he thinks, she would be just as unable to deal with my shit as I am. So what’s the point?

“Yeah, mom. Out in a sec.” With a last look at the nearly blind mirror he steels himself and opens the door. He puts on a forced smile that makes his jaw ache. It’s the one he uses when he talks to relatives and tells them everything will be alright even if he’s 99 percent sure he and Sam will find the missing person long dead in a ditch. “Let’s talk some strategy.”

 

###

 

They part ways two miles from the bunker. Mary sets out with Garth in the direction of the rift to go back to Sam. Dean and the fighter he met that first day, a scrawny guy who goes by the name of Danny and doesn’t talk if he doesn’t have to, will follow Bobby’s trail. His group has a head start of a day, but Dean’s sure they will be able to catch up.

Mary had pestered him the whole evening before he finally broke down and told her about Cas in short, clipped sentences, as if he recounted a case, just the bare bones of the events. She had looked at him for long moments. And then she had told him she was sorry. They had hugged and Dean had bitten the inside of his cheek to keep the unsaid words from tumbling out. Mary had awkwardly patted his back and muttered soothing lies, before she had told him – haltingly – about the version of Cas in this world.

 _A stone-cold warrior_ , she had said, _nothing like our Cas_.

Our Cas.

It had warmed his heart a little to hear that. Mary didn’t form bonds fast or lightly, and it meant a lot to him that she had accepted Cas into their weird family.

Now he looks at her fading form as she makes her way up the hills next to Garth. He will head out east with Danny, over to Olympia, and kill the devil. He tries to ban the news about the angel from his thoughts, but fails miserably. It’s a version of Cas that never met Sam or Dean, most likely never really interacted with humans.

Dean had often imagined how Cas had been before, when he was a soldier, a leader in heaven’s armies. He remembers the other-worldy coldness, the detached stare of Cas when he had first met him, the smooth façade that had crumpled with every action of free will until Cas had been unfit for the heavenly host.

Dean had always planned to ask Cas about the old times, when they had time for things like that, when they would share meals at the bunker and buy a couch and swap stories. His heart clenches. He will never get to ask him now.

This other angel – he wasn’t Cas and couldn’t be. He’s just a pale copy, Dean thinks, a replica. He fiercely hopes he won’t have to talk to him or even face him, afraid the bottled up rage behind his ribs will explode and let him tumble into the darkness he can feel lurking and pacing since Cas sank down in front of him, since Dean had gone to his knees on that beach. He will have to keep a safe distance from that danger.

Not thinking about how pale and quiet Cas’ face looked in the moonlight takes all his willpower as it is.

“So tell me about your side. You still have cars?” Danny seems to have enough of the silence. Or maybe he’s feeling Dean needs a distraction. Dean takes it, grateful to untangle his thoughts from the nightmares and the grief.

“Oh yeah, we have. You should see mine.” He smiles a small smile that feels fake but Danny returns it genuinely. They delve into stories about cars; Danny tells him how the oil fields and the refineries and the stations stopped working after the first wave of angels vs. demons and how everything went to shit after. They pass husks of burned out and stranded cars now and then, stripped of everything useful, silent and constant reminders that this world is nothing like the one Dean left behind. Danny seems wistful but he is starved for stories about a better place, eager to tell him about the time before when he had a boyfriend and a family and they met to eat burgers and beers.

Dean indulges him. He closes his eyes briefly to drench up a few images of his home. He talks about the best pie he had and how he gets his burgers just right and the sound Baby makes when they drive along a nice stretch of highway. And Dean can see how Danny forgets about the war and starvation and hopelessness. As he dives into his stories they both forget why they’re here for a while.

When the evening comes they rest for two hours before they set out again. Day and night bleed into each other here, never really dark, never really bright. They’re on the deserted highway now so they can find their way in the dim half-light of the full moon. The yellow-grey clouds obscure its contours, but their eyes adjust to the gloom that trickles through. When the sky gets slightly brighter again, they can see the outskirts of the city.

 _Olympia_.

A fitting place to fight the devil.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me at the beginning of s13: Oh damn, I was too slow, now I can't go on with my s12 coda fic:-(
> 
> The Show, a few months later: Lookit we made an AU!Cas, cool heh?
> 
> Me: *pics up old WIP out of sheer spite* 
> 
> (unbeta'd, sorry)

 

They meet in a field of death.

Blood, Dean finds, is so much redder in a world of grey, as if painted with a careless brush over the dust and the grime. Two angels lie at his feet, wings burned into the dry ground. He just wiped his blade on the jacket of one of his opponents when he looks up into the blue of Castiel’s eyes, the same blue, stark and deep and other. Castiel is in shackles, left behind by his guards. He stands in the midst of the chaos like a marble statue.

Dean’s breath catches in his throat, and his heart beats against his ribs like a drum, from the adrenaline of the fight and the shock of finally meeting the angel he heard about. The unmoving figure looks magnificent. Dean hadn’t anticipated the flash of sheer yearning that pulses through his veins as his eyes travel over the tanned, dirty skin wrapped in leather and tight black fabric. The black wings, tucked neatly behind his back. It’s Cas, but it’s _not_ and his mind struggles to accept what he’s seeing. He takes a deep gulping breath and trembles as it wheezes out of his lungs again. Around him, the battle goes on, but Dean can’t do anything but stare. His hand lifts as if it wants to reach out and his body screams at him to move, wrap his arms around the silent angel and never let him go.

He stays put. It’s the angel who moves first. His steps are slow. Dean looks down to see his feet are shackled, too. The sounds of metal clashing and people dying gets drowned by the furious pounding of his heartbeat in his ears. Castiel closes the distance between them, a look of wonder transforming the features Dean knows like the back of his hand.

“It’s you,” he murmurs, and he reaches out with his bound hands as if he wants to touch, to make sure Dean is real. Dean’s stomach heaves.

 _It’s not him. It’s not him_ , he thinks, again and again, while his heart breaks, because he would give anything, anything to be able to trust his eyes.

The hiss of a bullet breaks his stupor. Dean ducks, and Cas hands shoot out to grab Dean’s blade and twist it from his grip. Dean’s mind is taken back to a moment years ago, and he sees his own hand bury a blade in Cas’ chest. It’s only fair, he thinks, that he will die by that same blade, by Castiel’s hand. He closes his eyes as he straightens again, knowing that he doesn’t stand a chance against a full-powered angel.

A voice cries out.

The air shifts with the energy blast of a dying angel.

When Dean opens his eyes again, he sees Castiel crouched by the lifeless body a few feet away. With sure hands, he twists the blade out of the chest of the dead angel that tried to shoot Dean. When the warrior that isn’t Castiel comes back to him, holds out the blade for Dean to take it, something in him just … falls apart. He’s shaking, in shock most likely, the still working part of his brain points out, _thank you Mr. Obvious_ , but he can’t stop the violent trembles that wreck his body any more than the tears that stream down his face. The drops fall down from his bowed head onto the blade, washing away the blood.

The blade falls to the ground. Bound hands reach up slowly until a thumb meets the skin on his cheeks to wipe away another tear. Feathers rustle and Dean blinks through his tears to watch them expand and twitch behind Castiel's back.

“Dean,” Not-Castiel says, and it’s _his_ voice, that same low rumble that makes Dean feel safe and loved like nothing else in this or any other world. And he knows, he knows, he knows he can’t and shouldn’t and that it’s stupid and weak, but he leans forward into the touch and forward still until his forehead leans against a strong shoulder. A startled gasp is the only reaction he gets. The angel stands still, hands held awkward between them, and he says nothing while Dean cries. Castiel’s scent envelopes him and Dean takes deep breaths between sobs. It’s leather and dirt and, underneath it – Cas, thunderstorms and rain on sun-warm asphalt, a scent Dean didn’t realize he missed like limb until now.

When the tremors slowly subside, he steps back, unsure if he should apologize. He meets Castiel’s gaze through the blur of tears. Something moves in the blue depths, and for a second, Dean is fooled, lets himself be fooled, and he reaches out and cradles his palm around the angles of a too-familiar jaw. The stranger with the face of Castiel inhales sharply at the touch, his eyes go wide, and Dean lets his hand drop.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, because he has no right to touch him in a way he has always been too afraid to touch the real Cas. His Cas.

He bends to pick up his blade and stumbles away without another word, in the direction of the battle. He doesn’t turn around, but he feels the presence on his back, the bewildered stare, as he scans the field for a new enemy to kill.

The fight drags on until the weak sun settles behind the horizon. They have won, but at a high cost. A dozen fighters dead, twenty injured. Lucifer is still holed up in the city somewhere with the largest part of his army. Dean slumps next to Ash and takes the offered bottle without asking what it is. Battery acid, from the smell, but Dean isn’t picky. He forces down the booze, lets it burn his throat and warm his stomach.

He puts the bottle on the ground between them and offers his palm. “I’m Dean”.

“I know. Heard a lot about you. The name’s Ash. Saw you fight today.” He grabs the bottle and drinks before wiping his mouth and burping.

“You held yourself well,” Ash says. He looks like death warmed over, a large gash still oozing blood over his left eyebrow. Dean sees traces of his old pal in him, but a lot of the good-natured sass is replaced by cool strategic efficiency. “Not sure we would’ve made it without you.”

Dean huffs his thanks. He can’t remember much of the afternoon, just the feeling of his blade ripping up stomachs and gliding through ribs to find the heart, the stench of blood, the momentary blindness after watching grace leave a vessel. Every time it happened, Dean was sent back to that beach by the lake and saw familiar blue eyes flash instead of those of a stranger. Every time, he grit his teeth and moved on.

The strain of the day weighs his shoulders down, his muscles ache with fatigue.

Murmurs whisper through the troop of tired fighters when a figure shuffles its way to a spot just outside the loose circle. Castiel's wings are stretched out to balance where his bound feet can't. Dean watches as Castiel lowers himself gracefully unto the ground, face pointed away from the humans as if he’s scanning for enemies.

Ash follows Dean’s gaze. “You met him?”

Dean nods. “He… is very different from his version in our world. Is he on our side?”

Ash shrugs and takes another pull from the bottle, swallows the harsh liquor without flinching. “I guess. He’s not like the other angels I’ve met. I think something happened to him. He doesn’t seem to know what happened himself, but he told me about strange dreams he had lately. And then one of the demons we captured acted strange around him, as if he carried some kind of disease.” He shrugs again, his bony shoulders going up to his ears. “I sure as hell wouldn’t mind to have him fighting with us, but the others are wary. That’s why he’s still in shackles.”

Seemingly done with scanning the surroundings, Castiel turns and looks in Dean’s direction. Dean still can’t wrap his head around the fact that he exists, in Jimmy’s vessel, so much the same and still so much other than his Cas. He doesn’t look away, lets himself be studied by the stranger, and studies him in turn. He always joked about Cas’ stoic composure, but now he realizes how much more expressive Cas has become over the years.

This Castiel reminds him of the early days, with his unblinking, cool expression and the calculating squint. This is a Castiel that never learned to smile or laugh, that didn’t pout or smirk, because in this world, there’s no Dean to teach him. The thought hurts more than anything. It’s not just Dean that lost something irreplaceable on that day. Cas lost the chance to so many new thing he still could have experienced, so many ways to grow into the person he wanted to be, away from heaven’s duties and hell’s schemes. Did this Castiel carry that rebellious streak, too? Would he break away from the host to follow his own moral compass, given the chance?

Dean thinks back to their meeting on the battlefield. For some reason, the angel recognized him, didn’t he? Did someone tell him about Dean? In that moment, Dean had been too shell-shocked to ask about it. Now the question burns in the back of his brain, insistent like a buzzing fly. _It’s you_ , Castiel had said, and called him by his name. Dean stares at the lonely figure as if he can coax the answer out of him. _How do you know me? Who_ are _you?_

Something moves over Castiel’s face just then, something warm and longing that makes Dean’s heart beat faster and his palms sweat. But it’s gone as soon as it came and Dean’s not sure if it was just a trick played by the dying light of the day.

He snatches the bottle from Ash again.

“You should talk to him,” Ash muses, “I’m sure you can find out more about his motives.”

From a strategic point of view, that’s a good idea.

If the goal is for him to keep his sanity, it’s a bad, bad, bad idea.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm [procasdeanating](https://procasdeanating.tumblr.com/post/161020729246/my-new-fic-set-after-the-events-of-12x23-angsty) on tumblr. Come say hi!


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